Page 39 of Rogue Familiar

“Truly?” she breathed. That he’d say this to her was so much more than she’d dared hope for.

“Why couldn’t you just stay put, Seliah?” he asked, sounding wistful this time. “I wanted you safe from me, safe from what nearly happened. From what did happen. I can’t control this thing in me and you’re the last person in all the world I want to hurt.”

Her heart thrilled to the words. It wasn’t exactly a declaration of love, but coming from Jadren, it might as well be. “Because you care about me,” she insisted.

“Too much,” he agreed on a whisper. His mouth drifted closer to hers as he slipped his hand under her hair to caress the back of her neck. “This is your last chance, Seliah. Be smart for once and walk away from me. You could have a life with someone better than me. You don’t have to do this, but if you do, I don’t think I’ll be able to let you go again.”

How do you know it’s real, how you feel? Selly had asked Nic.

Does it matter? Nic had asked in turn. Feeling how you feel, even if you didn’t have a name or reason for it, would you go after Jadren anyway?

“I can’t do anything else.” She’d said that then and said it again, aloud and without meaning to.

Jadren frowned at her, though he didn’t let her go, his fingers flexing on the back of her neck. “You can, Seliah,” he said with quiet intensity. “I’m giving you that option. Don’t worry about the bond. It will attenuate again, if you let it. I felt it go when I was at the base of that cliff. The next time I almost die, it will—”

“Don’t say that!” she interrupted fiercely. “Just because you can’t actually die doesn’t mean you can be so careless with your life.”

“The point,” he said, enunciating the word, “is that you can be free of me, of this. Don’t let the wizard–familiar bond decide your fate. You can have your magic tapped by those friendly Phel wizards. You’ll be fine without me. Better, because we’re bonded, no other wizard can bond you. You can be free in a way that no other familiar can be.”

With a flutter of shock, she remembered Jadren didn’t know Alise could sever the bond. And she decided in that fraught moment between them that she wasn’t going to tell him. He’d find out the truth eventually—especially if they went back to House Phel—but she had this reprieve to convince him they were better together and she’d ruthlessly exploit that.

“You don’t need to pay the price of putting up with the likes of me,” Jadren continued, more earnest than she’d ever seen him. “I am not an easy person to be with.”

“Neither am I.”

His lips twisted ruefully. “Oh, Seliah, that is so not true. And you deserve so much better than being tied to a heartless monster like me. No, I’m not noble. You’re right about that, but I am an expert on pain and that is all I’m capable of giving you.”

She slid her hands up his shoulders, winding them behind his neck. “I seem to recall you bragging about being an expert on pleasure, too. You said you could make it very, very good for me.”

He winced, fingertips softly stroking the nape of her neck, giving her delightful shivers. “I was not in control of myself at the time. You know that. You should know that it could happen again.”

“You’re in control now.”

“Yes, which is why should stop me. I’ll let you go, Seliah, if you tell me no.”

“I don’t want to,” she breathed, and closed that last distance between them. Their lips touched, and she moaned at the sweet shock of the kiss, almost as if it were their first. Bright and new, full of promise.

His warm lips barely moved at first, tense and withholding, as if he tried to resist her. Then he groaned, a sound echoing her own, his hand firming on the back of her neck and keeping her there as he deepened the kiss, devouring, sending delightful sparks all through her. He stroked his other hand down her naked spine, shivers of heat following the wake of the caress. Such soft hands. Wizard’s hands, sensitive and sensitizing. No one had ever touched her like he did, like she was something precious to savor. No matter his words, his attempts to put her off, the way he touched and held her couldn’t perpetuate the lie.

Jadren wanted her as much as she wanted him. The bond shimmered between and around them, less like a ribbon or tie than like a blanket that wrapped around them both. She leaned into him, trembling with need, doing her best to savor the moment in case he changed his mind yet again. If nothing else, she’d have this memory, this moment, forever.

“Seliah,” he said, his voice hoarse, hand going to her bottom and pressing her against his groin. “I really think you should tell me no.”

Back in that cage in House El-Adrel, she’d told him no, had held off against his determined seduction. His behavior had been a product of his deranged mind in that moment, and they’d had witnesses, wizard-scientists observing them through the glass. But now they were alone and she would not refuse him again. She wanted, needed this, him. “Yes,” she replied. “Yes, Jadren. Yes, yes, yes. More than yes. Please.”

He made a sound of frustration, kissing her almost punishingly. She reveled in it, writhing against him, lifting her hands to slide them through his thick, fire-bright and silky hair. Breaking the kiss, he stared at her for a long, wild moment. Then swept her into the balcony of his arms, and carried her toward the bedroom.

“We should bar the door,” she protested weakly, not really wanting to take the time, but an interruption would be even worse. “Whoever lives here could—”

“Could be consumed by the fires of House Hagith for all I care.” He laid her on the bed with gentleness at odds with his words, lavishing her with kisses. “I warded the whole fucking shack. No one is getting in.”

“It’s a lovely cottage,” she argued, gasping as he flipped her over, undoing the fastening on the Ophiel lingerie that covered her breasts. He yanked it out from beneath her and it landed somewhere with a clatter as it knocked something over. Sweeping her hair to one side, he pressed her flat to the bed, hand stroking down her body and hot lips pressing to the hollow at the nape of her neck. She moaned, adjusting her face in the pillow so she could breathe, but otherwise yielding to his desires. Whatever way he wanted to have her was just fine.

Jadren kissed his way down her spine, melting her more with every touch, each lick of his tongue. He reached the small of her back, lingering there, then shifted to kneel beside her, tugging on the panties. “Lift,” he ordered gruffly, and she complied, raising her hips, though she felt a bit self-conscious letting him strip her of them, displaying her bottom with the movement.

She wasn’t a virgin, but she felt as shy as one. And, back when she’d lost her virginity, she hadn’t been quite right in the head, though not as far gone as she’d ended up. She’d been sixteen and considered silly with it, and already a bit wild, gravitating to the lonesome quiet of the marshlands. The boy had been the same age as her, a farmer, awkward and sweet. They’d gone swimming and fishing as much as they’d fooled around, and it had all been equally fun for her, the sex no more exciting than the rest. Mostly it had been a release from the brain-fogs that plagued her, the pleasure there and gone again.

Being with Jadren was nothing like that. He consumed her, set fire to her every nerve, his skill in touching her every bit as expert as he’d once promised. Sliding the panties down her thighs with excruciating slowness, he kissed the path of skin behind. She sighed, melting down, and he tutted in disapproval, slipping a hand underneath her hips to lift them again.

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